Stéphane Mallarmé worked as a lycée teacher at Tournon, Avignon and then Paris. His salon in the Rue de Rome became a rendezvous for young writers during the last fifteen years of his life. He was a friend of Degas. His verse often experiments with dislocated punctuation and grammar. more »

Sea Breeze

The flesh is sad, Alas! and I have read all the books.Let’s go! Far off. Let’s go! I sensethat the birds, intoxicated, flydeep into unknown spume and sky!Nothing – not even old gardens mirrored by eyes –can restrain this heart that drenches itself in the sea,O nights, or the abandoned light of my lamp,on the void of paper, that whiteness defends,no, not even the young woman feeding her child.I will go! Steamer, straining at your ropeslift your anchor towards an exotic rawness!A Boredom, made desolate by cruel hopestill believes in the last ...